Nikki Diogou

I am a bioacoustician and oceanographer; in my work I use passive acoustic recordings to investigate marine mammal presence in remote and inaccessible locations and answer ecological questions. My postdoctoral research is a collaboration between the Wildlife Conservation Society Canada, Stan Dosso’s Lab, and the Juanes Lab aiming to assess spatiotemporal patterns of bowhead presence and underwater noise in the Western Canadian Arctic. Using year-round recordings from a suite of acoustic stations in the Amundsen Gulf, I am interested in understanding and quantifying how bowheads, as well as other Arctic marine mammal species, distribution and movements may be influenced by climate change, oceanographic shifts, and anthropogenic noise. I am passionate about the world oceans and seas and their conservation is the major driver for my science.​​

Nora Carlson

​I am a behavioural ecologist that focuses on animal communication and predator-prey relationships. Although my introduction to science and bioacoustics was in the Salish Sea, since then my research has focused primarily on birds (Paridae sp., starlings, and sociable weavers) and how they communicate with one another about predators, how they use vocalisations to coordinate group behaviour, and how anthropogenic noise may be impacting how they do this. I am very excited to be expanding my focus to include fish, as I believe that there are many behavioural and ecological parallels between fish and birds, and hope to gain a better understanding of where these similarities lie. My current postdoctoral research is a collaboration between ECCC and the Juanes Lab and focuses on how anthropogenic noise impacts forage fish behaviour (sand lance and herring) in the short and long term and how these behavioural changes will alter their availability as prey to their marine avian predators (rhinoceros auklet and marbled murrelet). I am particularly interested in understanding the longer-term effects and repercussions on anthropogenic noise on species’ life histories and on multiple levels on interspecific interaction.​

Audrey Looby

I am a Banting Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Victoria, supervised by Dr. Francis Juanes. My fellowship focuses on acoustic attenuation through coastal habitats—a hypothesized ecosystem service mitigating noise pollution globally. I am also one of the co-leads of the FishSounds effort at FishSounds.net and I study other topics related to ecosystem restoration, fish-habitat interactions, and community ecology. I earned my doctoral and master's degrees at the University of Florida, studying the sounds of living shorelines, passive acoustic monitoring of fishes, and the effects of submerged aquatic vegetation restoration on fish habitat use. Prior to that, I worked as a research assistant at the Smithsonian Marine Station in both Florida and Belize, as well as conducted biodiversity monitoring in California kelp forests as part of my undergraduate research at the University of Southern California.

Kelsie Murchy

I am a postdoctoral researcher in the Juanes Lab with a focus on underwater sounds, their contribution to the marine soundscape, and impacts of anthropogenic noise on key marine species. My current research examines Arctic cod which are a key forage fish in the Arctic and produce a ‘grunt’ sound during spawning. The goal of this project is to describe daily and seasonal patterns in sound production of Arctic cod creating a method to observe their distribution and spawning period using passive acoustics, with an overall goal to monitor for any modifications in their behaviour patterns due to climate change.  

Deployment of tags and collection of a biopsy sample from a sperm whale off Newfoundland. Field team members from front to back of the boat: Luke Storrie, Kyle Lefort (DFO), Steve Ferguson (DFO), Jack Lawson (DFO), Greg Furey (DFO)).

Luke Storrie

I am a movement ecologist specializing in marine mammals. I use electronic tags to track the movements and measure the behaviour of whales in the Arctic and sub-Arctic. As part of a collaborative team of researchers, including Bill Halliday (Wildlife Conservation Society Canada), Steve Ferguson (Fisheries and Oceans Canada), and Nigel Hussey (University of Windsor), I aim to answer multiple questions on the ecology of these species and assess how they may be impacted by environmental change. My research currently focuses on using a combination of satellite tags and archival tags to quantify the effects of vessels on cetaceans; including examining the interactions between deep-diving toothed whales and fishing vessels; and assessing the responses of bowhead whales to anthropogenic noise.